TY - JOUR
T1 - Authoritarianism, Opacity & Proxies: The 2008 Olympic Torch Relay in Italian Media
AU - Tarantino, Matteo
AU - Carini, Stefania
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - The study explores the representations enacted by Italian media around the 2008 Beijing Olympics’\r\ntorch relay, based on a sample of newspaper articles, television news programs and online\r\nmaterials. While an explicit contrast between Olympic values and the concurrent violence due to\r\nthe 2008 Tibetan crisis offered the main frame in Italian media, the study advances the hypothesis\r\nthat these discourses simply gave new form to longer-standing representations about China,\r\nrevolving around key notions of ‘opaqueness’ and ‘authoritarianism’. This ‘radically other’ China\r\nand the Olympics (embodied in the Torch) are continuously described as ‘incompatible’, while in\r\nthe process offering a number of actors (public opinion, media, and industries) a rare chance for\r\nself-definition in opposition to the ‘other’. In this sense, the Tibetan issue appears to be used as a\r\nproxy to speak about broader issues, often related to the ongoing economic competition between\r\nItaly and China.
AB - The study explores the representations enacted by Italian media around the 2008 Beijing Olympics’\r\ntorch relay, based on a sample of newspaper articles, television news programs and online\r\nmaterials. While an explicit contrast between Olympic values and the concurrent violence due to\r\nthe 2008 Tibetan crisis offered the main frame in Italian media, the study advances the hypothesis\r\nthat these discourses simply gave new form to longer-standing representations about China,\r\nrevolving around key notions of ‘opaqueness’ and ‘authoritarianism’. This ‘radically other’ China\r\nand the Olympics (embodied in the Torch) are continuously described as ‘incompatible’, while in\r\nthe process offering a number of actors (public opinion, media, and industries) a rare chance for\r\nself-definition in opposition to the ‘other’. In this sense, the Tibetan issue appears to be used as a\r\nproxy to speak about broader issues, often related to the ongoing economic competition between\r\nItaly and China.
KW - China
KW - Italy
KW - Media
KW - Olympics
KW - China
KW - Italy
KW - Media
KW - Olympics
UR - https://publicatt.unicatt.it/handle/10807/1697
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=79952892159&origin=inward
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=79952892159&origin=inward
U2 - 10.1080/09523367.2010.481103
DO - 10.1080/09523367.2010.481103
M3 - Article
SN - 0952-3367
SP - 1473
EP - 1489
JO - International Journal of the History of Sport
JF - International Journal of the History of Sport
IS - June
ER -